Beijing Olympics: Battle for gold offers China first chance to 'defeat' America

Beijing Olympics: Battle for gold offers China first chance to 'defeat' America

China's emerging rivalry with America as a global superpower will move into the sporting arena next month as its Olympic athletes strive to oust their US counterparts from the top of the medals table for the first time.

In a showdown reminiscent of the Cold War-era battles for Olympian dominance, China has put unprecedented effort into ensuring that Beijing 2008 will be a sporting triumph as well as a logistical one.

With their athletes already dominant in events such as gymnastics, table tennis and martial arts, Chinese sporting chiefs have spent the past few years focusing on disciplines where Americans have traditionally excelled, including swimming, basketball and athletics.

Such is the host nation's eagerness to sweep the board that it has borrowed Western sporting expertise: honing the skills of the Chinese women's basketball team, for example, is the Australian coach Tom Maher.

He was drafted into the job to replace the Chinese coach after the team failed to make the top eight in the 2004 Athens Olympics.

China's attempt to end America's run of supremacy at the last three Games will add an East-West frisson not seen since the demise of the Soviet Union, which topped the medals board eight times in the post-war period. While the rest of the world's eyes will be on the heroics of the individual contestants, Chinese officials will pay closest attention to the total medal tally. Some expect America to take an early lead with the many swimming events in the first few days – but be squeezed by China as other disciplines kick in.

The increasing focus on athletics as the 16-day contest progresses may favour America in the final stages.

Meanwhile, giving both countries a run for their money will be increasingly oil-rich Russia, which, like China, sees the Games as an opportunity to underscore its new-found economic and political clout.

Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the US Olympic Committee, said: "We expect this to be one of the most competitive Olympics in recent history. That is down to a combination of China's investment in its Olympic programme, Russia's decision to do the same and the policy of some nations like Britain, which are targeting specific medals in sports that are important to them. China has to be considered the favourite. Every host nation receives a huge boost." China's new-found prowess in the international sporting arena is a product of both its increased openness to the outside world and its steady rise as a global economic gladiator.

Having boycotted the Games throughout the 1960s and 1970s because the International Olympic Committee recognised Taiwan as a member, the country notched up 15 gold medals in 1984, its first ever. By the Athens Games in 2004 it was in second place, winning 32 golds compared with America's 36.

Gold medal tallies, rather than tallies that also include bronzes and silvers, are the yardstick used by the International Olympic Committee to judge which nation ranks best. This year, China's gold share is likely to reach between 44 and 46 out of the 302 available, according to Simon Shibli, head of the Sport Industry Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University.

"I predict they could top the table this year, based on them continuing their rate of improvement and factoring in the home nation effect," he said.

America, he estimated, would win 38 to 39 golds, although he stressed that his detailed analysis had focused on China alone.

Key to China's attempt to come first this year is Project 119, an intensive training programme that aims to maximise Chinese inroads into Western-dominated athletics and water sports, such as swimming, canoeing and sailing. Named after the total number of gold medals available in those disciplines, the project is responsible for producing heroes like Liu Xiang, the reigning Olympic and World 110 metres hurdles champion, whose victories have led to him being mobbed by fans wherever he goes in China.

The Chinese have also pumped money into more obscure sports such as archery and shooting, meaning that a host of relative unknowns could notch up additional medals. Golds are all but guaranteed, meanwhile, for the likes of Zhang Yining, the world's top female table tennis player, who is expected to repeat her double triumph at Athens.

Mao Zhi Xiong, professor of sports psychology at Beijing Sports University, insisted it was only a "possibility" that China would secure the biggest medal sweep. But he agreed that a Chinese victory would be boost its international prestige.

"If you win a lot of medals, then it shows you have advanced as a country," he said. "It means the economy is growing, that living standards are improving and that there is better technology."

Ai Baoguo, editor of the Chinese edition of Sports Illustrated, said both Chinese officialdom and the public had huge expectations of their Olympic team.

For successful athletes, the rewards go well beyond the medals podium, with large cash bonuses, test-free entry to university, and, thanks to the country's new-found spirit of capitalism, lucrative sponsorship deals.

But the training regimes are still reminiscent of those used in East Germany in the Soviet era. Promising children are hothoused from as young as six in elite, sports-focused boarding schools, where their access to their families is often limited. Only last week, Joseph Capousek, a successful German kayak coach who was recently sacked as trainer of the Chinese national team, said his former employers ran a military?style training regime where athletes were worked "like horses". Chinese officials have denied his claims.

American hopes for this year will be riding on the swimmers Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff, who hope to win eight and seven gold medals respectively. If Phelps succeeds he will beat the American swimmer Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven golds for a single Games.

Should either of them fall ill for any reason, the potential damage to America's medal tallies would be substantial: fears of food poisoning have led the US Olympic Committee to bring in their own caterers to Beijing, which has not gone down well with their Chinese hosts.

A recent analysis by economists at PriceWaterhouseCoopers concluded that China was on target to win 88 medals overall, compared with 87 for the US, making the actual outcome too close to call.

Away from the sports field, and on more conventional superpower indices, it will take longer for China to overhaul America. Its nuclear arsenal numbers only a few hundred warheads compared with the thousands hoarded by Washington, despite increased military spending in recent years. In technology, design and innovation the gap is still closing, rather than closed.

However, Albert Keidel, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for World Peace, a Washington think tank, suggested in a report this month that Beijing would eclipse the US in less than 30 years. "I find, using what I consider to be quite conservative growth projections, that China will pass the United States in total GDP in about 2035," he told The Sunday Telegraph. "And by about 2055 or so, it will be double the United States' economy."

Whatever happens in Beijing, Chinese supremacy at the Olympics looks almost certain within a matter of years.

Steve Roush, the US Olympic Committee's head of sports performance, said recently that with a population of 1.3 billion – more than four times that of the US – future Chinese dominance was a statistical certainty. "You start doing the math, and that's what keeps me up at night," he said.